U.S. charges Maduro's industry minister with sanctions violations

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday announced criminal charges against a top official in Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government for violating sanctions imposed two years ago, when the official was accused of drug trafficking.

Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah, Venezuela’s industry minister, was accused of evading the February 2017 sanctions by hiring U.S. companies to provide private jet services, including for a Feb. 23 return trip to Venezuela from Russia.

Venezuelan businessman Samark Jose Lopez Bello, an El Aissami associate also sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, was also criminally charged, as were several other defendants.

A lawyer for El Aissami could not immediately be located. Lopez Bello’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

El Aissami and Lopez Bello, both 44, were each charged with five counts of circumventing sanctions and violating the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, which targets people believed to threaten U.S. economic and foreign policy interests.

Each count carries a maximum 30-year prison term.

The sanctions against El Aissami were the first by the Trump administration against a top official in Maduro’s government for alleged money laundering and drug trafficking.

El Aissami was accused of helping arrange drug shipments out of Venezuela, including to the United States and Mexico, through his control of a Venezuelan airbase and shipping ports.

“Enforcement of these sanctions is critical to the national security interests of the U.S.,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan said in a statement.